{"id":3218,"date":"2021-08-13T08:29:26","date_gmt":"2021-08-13T12:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/?p=3218"},"modified":"2021-08-13T08:35:09","modified_gmt":"2021-08-13T12:35:09","slug":"rival-rings-lost-and-found-benzie-frankfort-high-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/rival-rings-lost-and-found-benzie-frankfort-high-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Rival Rings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Missing for 32 years, found just weeks apart<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By Aubrey Ann Parker
Current Editor<\/strong>

On Tuesday, July 27, at around 2pm, Paul Emling posted photos of a found ring on Facebook. It was a class ring from 1991 with the names \u201cMatt\u201d and \u201cFrankfort\u201d engraved on it, along with a shiny blue stone in the center, as well as a basketball and a football engraved on the side. Emling was asking for help locating the owner\u2014apparently there were only three graduates of  the Class of 1991 at Frankfort High School with that first name: Matt Erickson, Matt Garber, and Matt Smith.

Within 24 hours, the Facebook post had more than 80 \u201clikes,\u201d more than 60 \u201ccomments,\u201d and more than 1,200 \u201cshares.\u201d More than that, the ring\u2019s rightful owner had been found.

Matt Garber says that he lost the ring 32 years ago, when he was a sophomore in high school.

\u201cI actually lost two class rings, and this was the first one,\u201d Garber admits. \u201cMy birthstone is pink for October, but I thought that I\u2019d get made fun of, so I chose to go with a blue stone.\u201d

As far as Garber can remember, he has always thought that he lost the ring at the Frankfort beach while playing volleyball. Moreover, he has always blamed the loss on his \u201cparachute pants.\u201d 

Shortly after losing his first class ring, Garber somehow conned his father into buying a second one\u2014this time opting for his pink birthstone\u2014but he ultimately lost that one, too. 

And though the second pink ring has never since been recovered, the first blue one is soon to be back in his hands.

Garber, who now lives in Manistee, has been in touch with Emling about meeting up to get the ring back, and he plans to do something nice for him, \u201clike buy him a case of beer or something.\u201d Though he is still very confused about where the ring was found.

\u201cPaul told me that somebody found it on a job site where he was working on Frankfort Avenue in Elberta, but I swear that the last place I remember having that ring was at the Frankfort beach playing volleyball, so I have no idea how or why it would have been found at my house,\u201d Garber says, puzzled. \u201cI\u2019m still trying to work that one out. I wonder if my sisters had something to do with it, as they were probably around eight and 10 back then.\u201d

This is not the first time that social media has aided in a found ring getting back to its original owner, often after years and years of being lost.

However, this is not the end of the story.

The novelty, in this case, is that two almost identical rings, save for being from rival schools, which were lost the same year, 1989, were then found within just weeks of each other in July 2021.

Earlier this month, Alex Brydges\u2014a Beulah resident originally from downstate\u2014was metal detecting in Crystal Lake at Second Street beach in Beulah when he came across a class ring from 1989 that bears a striking similarity to Garber\u2019s 1991 ring. Both have a bright blue stone at the center, but instead of having a panther face on the side, the ring that was found in Crystal Lake has a husky head.
 
This class ring once belonged to Eric L. Burns, who says it has been missing for 32 years.

\u201cI lost the ring during my senior year, before we even walked at graduation,\u201d Burns says. \u201cI had it for a month maybe. I used to work at the Cherry Hut, baking pies in the kitchen, and it would get so hot in there. After work, I used to go to Second Street beach across the road to jump in after work. I think it must have been a combination of the hot kitchen and the cold water\u2014whatever it was, the ring came off my finger, and I never saw it again.\u201d

That is, until he received a message on Facebook from a complete stranger; one which he almost completely ignored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Alex
While metal-detecting in Crystal Lake on the 4th of July, Alex Brydges (left) found a 1989 class ring that had once belonged to Eric L. Burns (right). The ring had been missing for 32 years; Burns lost it before he was able to walk at graduation. As a way of passing on the luck, Burns bought Brydges a scratch-off lottery ticket and a gas card, as thanks; it was a dud. Photo courtesy of Eric L. Burns.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought, \u2018What kind of scam is this? I\u2019m not even responding to this\u2019,\u201d says Burns, who now resides in St. Joseph. \u201cEverybody lost their class ring somehow, so I just thought it had to be someone running a scam, trying to get gullible people.\u201d

Complicating the story even further, it was not Alex Brydges\u2014the person who had found the ring\u2014who reached out to Burns, because Brydges does not have a Facebook account; instead, he asked a friend, Matt Wooten, to send the message for him. Since Burns\u2019 full name was inscribed on the inside of the ring, it was easy to track him down on social media. And as it happens, Burns had a Facebook friend in common with Wooten.

\u201cI asked him if that person was legit, and to my surprise, [my friend] said he was,\u201d Burns says. \u201cAfter making sure that it wasn\u2019t a hacker or a scam, we came Up North to camp out with other graduates from my class at the beginning of July. I met up with Alex [Brydges] at the Shell in Honor [on Saturday, July 10] to get my ring from him.\u201d 

As a way of passing on the luck, Burns bought Brydges a scratch-off lottery ticket and a gas card, as thanks.

\u201cIt was a dud,\u201d Brydges says. \u201cBut it didn\u2019t matter. He didn\u2019t need to get me anything. It was cool to be able to return his ring to him.\u201d

Brydges notes that this was not what would be considered \u201cnormal\u201d metal detecting: he was underwater, out over his head.

\u201cThat\u2019s probably why it had never been found, until now,\u201d Brydges explains.

When The Betsie Current<\/em> asked each of the ring owners if he knew the other, it turns out\u2014rather unsurprisingly, given only two years between them and two rival schools\u2014that they did. 

Garber had actually attended Benzie County Central Schools until the summer between 8th and 9th grade, when he transferred from Benzie to Frankfort. Both men played basketball, as their rings showcased, so there had been some overlap there, too, as well as mutual friends.

When Garber told a friend that his ring had been found on July 27, that friend told him how Burns\u2019 ring had been found just a few weeks previously.

\u201cI was like, \u2018I know Eric Burns, I remember him\u2019,\u201d Garber says.

Meanwhile, Burns, who just turned 50, says that having his ring back after all this time is \u201clike opening a time capsule.\u201d

\u201cAfter I lost my first ring, my dad was mad, but he got me another. Then, when I lost that second one, he was like, \u2018Nope, we\u2019re done,\u2019\u201d Garber says. \u201cHe passed away in June 2019; he would be ecstatic to know it came back.\u201d

As for Garber\u2019s second pink ring that is still missing, he believes that one was lost on the Frankfort Elementary school grounds, somewhere near the basketball courts in the back.

\u201cI remember taking it off to play basketball, because there were those horror stories of going to slam dunk and getting a ring caught and losing your finger,\u201d Garber says. \u201cSo I took it off and never found it.\u201d

Garber says that if his second missing ring ever came back to him, he would buy a lottery ticket that day. Maybe Alex Brydges can find it with his metal detector.

Alex Brydges says that he is willing to attempt to find your lost jewelry. Contact him by emailing bigbrother527@yahoo.com<\/a>.<\/em>

Featured Photo Caption: <\/strong>Eric L. Burns was a senior at Benzie Central High School in 1989. But before he could even walk at graduation, he lost his class ring while swimming in Crystal Lake. Meanwhile, Matt Garber was a sophomore at Frankfort High School that same year, and he lost his class ring. Both rings have basketballs on them, both have blue stones. But one ring has a husky head, while the other has a panther face. Both rings were missing for 32 years; both were found in July and returned to their original owners, thanks in large part to the power of social media. Photos courtesy of Paul Emling (top) and Eric L. Burns (bottom). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Missing for 32 years, found just weeks apart<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3220,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[241,41,37,255,44],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/ring_web.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3TDCr-PU","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3218"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3218"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3222,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3218\/revisions\/3222"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}